Neil Hollander was born in New York City, NY, on July 9, 1939. His ancestry includes German and Irish. Hollander is a graduate of the University of Washington. Today he lives and works in Paris, France.

Neil Hollander is a writer, director and film producer. He is author of several books, interview and has also hosted museum exhibits. During his long career Neil has worked as a professor at the University of Washington and as a journalist and war correspondent from Burma. He got his start as a journalist - reporter travelling the country and writing reports from the places he visits. After spending almost a decade on the road, Hollander decided to turn his attention to writing books and screenplays.

At the beginning of the 80's Neil Hollander and Harold Mertes decided to sail around the world and document the life of people on various seaports. This project took 4 years and and was captured both on paper and film. It remains to be one of the last remainders of the bygone era. The documentary film that came out of this project "The Last Sailors: The Final Days of Working Sail" is a 2.5 hour long video story narrated by Orson Welles. The book, authored by Neil Hollander recalls the author's' experiences with eight surviving craft and gives an insight of the boat history, building and repairing of boats.

Neil Hollander has written and directed several feature films, and produced and co-directed "Nobel Voices". It is a collection of thirty-three interviews of Nobel Prize laureates, all of them are interviewed and stored as a part of the heritage of this institution.